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[Reprinted  from   the  Boston  Medical   ami   Surgical   Joukxal, 
Vol.    clxxxiv,    No.     18,    pp.    474,    47.3,    May    5,    1921.] 


HUMAN  VIVISECTION. 
1729  Chestnut  St.,  Philadelphia,  Pa.,     ' 
April  5,  1921. 
Mr.  Editor:— 

In  Tft-e  Starry  Cross  (the  Philadelphia  Antivivisec- 
tion  journal  of  which  Mr.  R.  E.  Logan  is  the 
editor),  for  March,  1921,  is  an  article  of  about  2500 
words  by  the  associate  editor,  Mrs.  M.  F.  Lovell,  en- 
titled "An  Answer  to  Dr.  Keen." 

This  answer  is  to  my  article  on  "Vivisection"  in 
The  Country  Gentleman  for  February  12,  1921.  In 
this  article,  I  quoted  Mrs.  White's  much  earlier  pro- 
posal for  "Experimenting  on  human  beings."  Mrs. 
Lovel  begins  by  saying:  "On,e  of  the  most  common  of 
these  [gleams  of  virtue]  is  a  reluctance  to  criti- 
cize the  dead,  and  seldom  ,  indeed,  except  by 
the  most  unscrupulous,  is  a  direct  accusation  brought 
against  one  who.  being  no  longer  in  this  life,  is  un- 
able to  refute  it."  As  to  this  general  assertion,  I  need 
only  remark  that  Pasteur,  Lister,  Claude  Bernard. 
Bruntou,  Behring,  and  scores  of  other  research  work- 
ers, are  constantly  "accused"  by  antivivisectionists. 
without  number,  of  cruelties  and  other  faults.  It  is 
the  current  coin  of  their  literature.  Yet  all  of  these 
men  are  "no  longer  in  this  life  and  [are]  unable  to 
"refute"  such  accusations.  It  seems,  then,  that  it  is 
a  crime  to  criticize  a  dead  antivivisectionist,  but  a 
virtue  to  lash  and  misrepresent  a  dead  experimenter. 
Does  not  the  old  adage  say,  "What  is  sauce  for  the 
goose  is  sauce  for  the  gander"? 

As  to  the  positive  inference  that  I  had  refrained 
from  accusing  Mrs.  White  of  advocating  human  vivi- 
section while  she  was  living,  and  only  did  so,  when. 
being  dead,  she  could  not  reply,  it  is  absolutely  incor- 
rect. I  accused  her  over  four  years  before  her  death 
and  she,  herself,  quickly  published  two  replies  to  my 
charge,  one  in  the  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical 
Journal,  and  the  other  in  the  Journal  of  Zoophily. 


i     / 


Recently,  I  passed  my  eighty-fourth  birthday. 
Though  Mrs.  Lovell  does  not  mention  this,  she  un- 
doubtedly had  in  mind  my  impending  (and,  I  may 
add,  sotto  voce,'  my  undoubtedly  welcome)  demise. 
In  view  of  the  uncertainty  of  my  life  (sic),  she  thinks, 
before  death  stills  my  pen  and  voice,  I  ought  to  re- 
tract the  statement  that  Mrs.  White  advocated  human 
vivisection.  On  the  contrary,  I  reaffirm  it  and  call 
the  then  living  Mrs.  White  as  my  witness. 

Let  us  see  just  what  Mrs.  White  did  say  in  1SS6, 
in  her  "Reply"  to  my  address,  "Our  Recent  Debts  to 
Vivisection."  Referring  to  the  20,000  annual  deaths 
from  snake  bite  in  India,  she  proposed  that  the  "ex- 
perimenters go  to  India,  where  they  could  find  as 
large  a  field  for  investigation  as  they  require  in  the 
poor  victims  themselves.  Here  is  an  opportunity  such 
as  is  not  often  afforded  of  EXPERIMENTING  UPON 
HUMAN  BEINGjS,  since,  as  they  would  infallibly  die 
from  the  snake  bites,  there  can  be  no  objection  to 
trying  upon  them  every  variety  of  antidote  that  can 
bei  discovered."  (I  use  italics  and  capitals  not  to 
change  the  sense,  but  solely  for  emphasis.)  If  I 
understand  the  English  language,  advocating  "ex- 
perimenting on  human  beings"  is  flat-footed  advocacy 
of  "Human  Vivisection."     It  can  mean  nothing  else. 

In  the  Boston  Medical  and"  Surgical  Journal, 
May  2  and  9,  1912,  is  printed  a  later  address  of  my 
own,  entitled  "The  Influence  of  Antivivisection  on 
Character."  In  this  address,  I  quoted  Mrs.  White's 
suggestion  of  188f>  of  "experimenting  on  human  be- 
ings" bitten  by  snakes.  To  this  address,  Mrs.  White 
herself  replied  in  a  3500  word  letter  (Boston  Medical 
and  Surgical  Journal,  July  25,  1912).  Let  us  see 
what  was  her  own  reaction  more  than  four  years 
before  tier  death  (September  7,  1916)  to  my  quoting 
her  proposal.  Did  she  declare  that  I  was  "unscrupu- 
lous" and  deem  it  an  "aspersion"  on  her  character? 
Not  a  hit  of  it!  She  not  only  did  not  resent  my 
quoting  and  interpreting  her  own  words,  but,  after 
having  had  twenty-six  years  to  reflect  upon  her  pro- 
posal to  "experiment  upon  human  beings,"  she  gal- 
lantly stood  by  her  guns  and  defended  it !  Her  own 
words  are  (Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal, 
July  25,  1912)  :  "It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  this  is 
a  cruel  suggestion,  as  my  only  ob.lect  in  it  was  to 
benefit  the  poor  natives  who  die  by  the  thousands 
every  year!" 

If  Mrs.  White,  while  living,  did  not  resent  my  quot- 


iug  her  own  words,  as  "aspersing"  her  character, 
why  should  Mrs.  Lovell  and  Mr.  Logan  now  so  vio- 
lently resent  it? 

But  let  us  search  a  little  further  and  consult  the 
Journal  of  Zodphily  (the  former  name  of  what  is  now 
The  Starry  Cross),  itself  the  organ  of  .the  antivivi- 
sectionists  themselves.  In  1912,  Mrs.  White  was  the 
editor  and  Mrs.  Lovell,  as  now,  "associate  editor"  of 
that  journal ! 

In  the  issue  for  September,  1912,  page  3S0,  I  find 
that  Mrs.  White's  letter,  first  published  in  the  Boston 
Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  of  July  25,  1912,  is 
reprinted  in  full,  under  the  title  "The  Self-defense  of 
an  Antivivisectionist."  So  here,  in  Mrs.  White's  and 
Mrs.  Lovell's  own  Journal,  Mr^.  White  failed  to  resent 
my  suggestion  that  she  favored  "experimenting  on 
human  beings,"  but,  actually,  after  years  of  reflec- 
tion, defended  it. 

By  entirely  omitting  any  mention  of  the  facts  that 
the  address  in  which  I  had  quoted  her  was  published 
four  years  and  four  months  before  Mrs.  White's 
death,  and  that  she,  herself,  replied  to  it  in  print, 
not  only  in  the  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Jour- 
nal, but  in  the  very  journal  of  which  Mrs.  Lovell 
was,  and  still  is,  the  associate  editor, — by  ignoring 
these  facts  Mrs.  Lovell  and  Mr.  Logan  give  the  wholly 
false  impression  that  my  charge  that  she  had  made  a 
flat-footed  proposal  to  "experiment  on  human  beings" 
was  not  made  until  after  her  death  when  she  could  not 
reply.  If  Mrs.  Lovell  and  Mr.  Logan  knew  of  her 
two  replies,  they  concealed  the  truth  from  their 
readers.  If  they  did  not,  they  were  lamentably  igno- 
rant of  the  literature  relating  to  tneir  own  business 
and  to  the  contents  of  their  own  journal.  In  either 
case,  it  is  they  who  should  make  a  retraction  and 
offer  me  an  apology  for  such  a  misrepresentation. 

The  outstanding  feature  of  all  antivivisection  litera- 
ture, as  to  medicine,  is  that  they  "know  it  all."  My 
friends  and  I,  who  have  diligently  studied  and  taught 
and  practised  medicine  for  forty,  fifty  and  sixty 
years,  deplore  our  ignorance  about  many  things  as 
to  which  we  long  for  more  light.  We  wish  by  all 
possible  means,  including  animal  experimentation,  to 
obtain  this  additional  light.  We  do  know  enough,  how- 
ever, to  say  that  Mrs.  Lovell's  oracular  statements  as 
to  typhoid  fever,  yellow  fever,  smallpox,  sanitation 
and  the  "stupendous  folly  of  germ  hunting"  are  utter 
nonsense. 


"Yellow  fever,  like  typhoid,  is  a  filth  disease.  Re- 
move the  filth  aud  you  remove  the  cause,'*  is  one  of 
her  hold  assertions. 

This  assertion  is  not  true.  They  are  two  diseases, 
each  caused  by  its  own  specific  "germ"  and  by  nothing 
else.  The  fact  is,  you  may  like  in  a  filthy  hovel  and 
may  develop  other  diseases,  but  you  will  not  develop 
typhoid  unless  there  are  typhoid  germs  in  the  food 
yon  eat  and  drink.  In  the  same  filthy  surroundings, 
you  will  not  develop  yellow  fever  unless  there  are 
infected  mosquitoes  to  bite  you. 

On  the  contrary,  you  may  live  in  Mrs.  Lovell's  own 
home,  with  spotless  ultra-sanitary  surroundings,  bin 
if  you  eat  solid  food  over  which  have  crawled  flies 
with  typhoid  germs  on  their  little  feet,  or  drink  wafer 
or  milk  which  "has  no  smell  and  which  looks  and 
tastes  and  appears  to  be  entirely  wholesome  but 
which  contain  the  "germs"  of  typhoid,  you  will  fall  a 
victim  to  typhoid.  If,  in  similarly  perfect  surround- 
ings, you  are  bitten  by  an  infected  mosquito,  you 
will  lie  attacked  by  yellow  fever. 

But  Mrs.  Lovell  may  say  this  is  exactly  the  "filth" 
that  she  refers  to.  I  grant  it  at  once  and  point  out 
that  this  filth  is  composed  of  the  bacilli  of  typhoid 
fever.  Mrs.  Lovell,  if  she  makes  that  statement,  at 
once  concedes  my  contention  that  typhoid  fever  is 
caused,  not  by  filth  per  sc,  but  by  filth  which  contains 
the   germs   of  typhoid. 

The  Boston  Journal  gave  place  in  its  issue  of  July 
11,  1912,  to  a  short  letter  from  Mr.  Stephen  Coleridge, 
criticizing  my  address  of  1912.  and  again,  on  July 
25.  1912.  it  published  Mrs.  White's  long  letter.  The 
editor  then  said:  "It  is  only  just  that  these  two  com- 
munications should  appear  in  the  Journal,  since  the 
cause  of  truth  is  never  better  served  than  by  the 
free  expression  ami  fair  hearing  of  diverse  opinions 
about  it." 

As  soon  as  I  read  Mrs.  Lovell's  attack  upon  me,  I 
requested  the  editor  of  The  Starr])  Cross  to  allow  me 
equal  space  for  a  reply.  He  curtly  "advised"  me  that 
•"the  columns  of  the  Starry  Cross  are  not  open  to 
artieles  favorimr  vivisection,  or  intended  to  asperse 
the  memory  of  its  founder." 

As  The  Starry  Cross  refuses  to  let  the  light  pene- 
trate the  minds  of  its  readers.  I  am  askini  the 
courtesy  of  your  columns  as  you  believe  that  truth  is 
best  attained  by  hearing  both  sides. 

Yours  trulv. 

W.  W.  Keen. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2012  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/humanvivisectionOOkeen 


